1. |
Marcellus
04:31
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Marcella’s broken bones were blackened and her flesh was never found
All the people who keep looking walk the streets with their heads down
Dumb luck isn’t helping and we knew it never would
So keep your inside jokes inside from the steeples to the hills
Unsettled minds can’t be satisfied
On the street they keep talking about what might have been
if the pattern in the carpet reared it’s ugly head
So they throw their suspicions at anything that moves
and keep making the same mistakes without checking their books
Unsettled minds can’t be satisfied
While you were sleeping, they took it all
and you did not notice, that everything was gone
You kept walking with that white noise in your ears
down to the orchards where the highway disappears
I do not blame you for burying those bones
because I know it’s the only protection that you will ever know
Unsettled minds can’t be satisfied
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2. |
Split the Pick in Two
02:57
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Picking flowers from the trash
pressed beneath your daddy’s stack of Wall Street Journals
I’m pretty sure that he won’t take notice
He threw them out with last weeks Economist
And you know it’s not your fault
it’s always been women and children first
On the steps of the Ivy League
Every time they throw you underneath the uptown bus
That ain't no way to treat your flesh and blood
It's not what you would choose if it were up to you
And you think it’s of no use
because you’ve been told this world is cruel and they serve a higher purpose
It don’t matter where you came from kid
It only matters where your head is
So split the pick in two
They're gonna love you no matter what you do
Breaking bottles in the trash
Smash them all up into powder bits against
fluorescent bulbs your mother just can’t stand
She says the light as false, she always turns them off
And you know it’s not your fault
these things burn hot before they burn you out
It don’t matter where you came from kid
It only matters where your head is
So split the pick in two
They're gonna love you no matter what you do
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3. |
Lovely Mess
04:45
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Major cities are miles apart for a reason you claim
Ordinary people living ordinary lives
But the distance in between can become a tangible thing
Quit trying to clean me up
I never meant to spill my guts
What’s good in life isn’t so easily defined
You've been having bad dreams
about good things gone badly
Crossing borders for better futures
can only add to your confusion
Quit trying to clean me up
I never meant to bare my throat
Polish your past with your family crest
Show me a life with no regrets
You claim to see the accident twelve cars ahead
You’ve been keeping one bag packed to follow shadows your marksman cast
But even as the icecaps meltyou can’t unbuckle your hangman’s belt
Quit trying to clean it up
I need a place to hang my coat
Always the last one to be impressed
Always the last lovely mess
And I’m busy busy busy making my ends meet
And I’m busy busy busy trapped in the scenery
So I’m changing my lucky number to one
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4. |
Bow Ribbons
05:48
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Everybody’s busy driving by
with expensive teeth straight and white
While the trains may run on time
my loose ends remain untied
Wasted days turn to wasted nights
I need to recognize convenience when it strikes
Calm rivers turn to rapids over rocks
Bow ribbons aren’t bow ribbons without knots
Why not take what you need for the summer time
before it’s too late to come running back for more
I may not want to be there to welcome you
but you know what you need better than I do
I know there’s nothing left for us to say
so keep your head turned away
I hope the cyclone fence on you fingertips
keeps you company as you walk hip to hip
I know we’re looking out for absolutes
What we depend on has turned for the worse
Calm rivers turn to rapids over rocks
Bow ribbons aren’t bow ribbons without knots
Why not, take what you need for the summer time
before it’s too late to come running back for more
I may not want to be there to welcome you
but you can get what you need one more time
Why not, take what you need for the summer time
before it’s too late to come running, back for more
I may not want to be there to welcome you
I have my needs to consider and they won’t let me go
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5. |
Collier Canyon
02:28
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Kathleen don’t leave
Sit tight for the time being
It's old hat, I know
We can make it up as we go
Collier Canyon will calm you down
as the rodeo rolls into town
Tie you down
I know those cowboys have their eyes on you
Sweetest thing on their whole damn tour
I put my arm around you like I should
I show them I’m one
you’re sticking around for
Sticking around for
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6. |
Rainbow Records
03:58
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Days grow short and lose distinction as time passes
I’m thinking of you now
I can’t put out the torch, it has to burn out on it’s own
So I pull out your old Maxell tapes and play some radio songs
And I scuff the kitchen floor with my Sunday shoes
like you and I used to do
Just before I fall apart
the blood in my head ends up in my heart
Old times old times weighing heavy on the mind
so I ditch my day job for a day and lock it all inside
Shining by the light of the stereo
Taping pop songs off the radio
I remember you in eighty-four
knocking it around to Purple Rain in the record store
Playing songs we can’t afford
now the tipping point has tipped and our fountain of youth has turned to shit
So I scuff the kitchen floor with my Sunday shoes
like you and I used to do
Just before I fall apart
the blood in my head ends up in my heart
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7. |
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Let’s start a gang
we’ll shoot up this town
Start at the ampm and end at City Hall downtown
I don’t matter who we hit
because it won’t make no difference
you know my aim is for shit
and I’m pretty sure yours is too
We'll have to steal a car
one of reliable means
A brand belonging to the common kind
of a color that won’t attract any eyes
My neighbor’s got one down the street
station wagon with vinyl seats
I’m pretty sure she keeps the gas tank full
full enough to get us out of here
Now I’m your son of a gun
from the Year of the Dragon
Your my saddle tramp sidekick
from the Year of the Snake
And we ride on the mischievous side
stair dancing over the firing line
They say if you don’t obsess about it
then it’s probably better to live without it
So we cross the Arroyo Bridge
as the rubbernecks spit at what we did
and all the sunlight on the vinyl seats
burns our legs in the summer heat
We know it’s wrong, but we do it anyway,because we like it and you like us that way
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8. |
Missy Sport
04:28
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The spotlight slaps her in the face
wipes the shadows from her eyes, capillaries on pale white
The pressure will never let up now, it’s great so great
Missy presses against fences bricked tight so tight
She sprays the crowd with saccharine sound
So sweet it’s bound to rot your teeth, providing pain so great
but the story only floats if she keeps cutting her throat
No one gets a second chance so arrange it any way you can
Powdered noses pressed against tinted windows
Blank faces drunk on youth, fast talking and aloof
dragging boot heals down sidewalks, tough so tough
Dressed like winos in the gutters
Filled to the top with bitter little thoughts
of animal poses and animal poses
No one gets a second chance so arrange it any way you can
Missy Sport, holds a parking spot for a limousine
Missy Sport, coats her pearly whites in Vaseline
the doors are all locked tight while she toe taps to methamphetamines
The bus is up on blocks pointed at Memphis Tennessee
but we don’t know if the darling will make it home again, the same
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9. |
Field Shots
05:13
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I’m taking shots into the field and nobody’s falling down
Everybody back home says I’m crazy because I’m out here on my own
But little do they know, little do they know, little do they know
That the sand is burning beneath our feet
and the sky is falling the sky is falling
So defend our women defend our children
from hands of strangers and foreign language
Well I’m still willing to stay in the cross-hairs of harms way
With a tune to whistle and a beat to dance to
A photograph and a camera angle
for the magazine on your bedside table
all the blood and guts of your friendly neighbor
Still we pretend to have, but it’s polka dots and plaid
I woke up a couple years older and everything looked the same
Rows of women and men, sitting blank faced in the sun
thinking about loving someone special that don’t love them
thinking about having something special that they can’t have
But little do they know, little do they know, little do they know
That the borders are lined with dirty bombs
and the cupboards hang with empty cans, with rusty hinges, rusty hinges
commercial anthems and bad decisions
They got problems that I can’t fix and I know I don’t know the half of it
but I’m still willing to stay in the cross-hairs of harms way
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10. |
Fumer Tue
03:29
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I’ll buy you cigarettes, if you want to
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Oceanography Oakland, California
Oceanography is the solo project of Oakland-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Brian Kelly. He brings a unique pop sensibility to bittersweet songs of heartbreak, loss, and longing, recalling at times The War on Drugs, My Morning Jacket, and Damien Jurado. His literary eye for detail and deceptively powerful voice create moments of catharsis and beauty amid the bleak and mundane. ... more
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